Beyond Security: 3 More Reasons to Install a New Floodlight

Despite being an essential for basic nighttime safety and home security, outdoor lighting upgrades are often passed over for other easy exterior updates that directly affect a home's curb appeal quotient. After living with a new and improved floodlight for a week, this homeowner discovered three surprising reasons to prioritize this simple switch.

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Where I live out in the country, the nights can be very dark—no city lights down the street, and nothing more than the stars (as long as it isn’t cloudy) to cast a dim light. But early sunsets this time of year don’t dictate when I arrive home, so I still find myself stumbling and feeling my way around the corner of the garage in the black of night so that I can find the winding sidewalk that leads to my back door. It’s an all-too-familiar scene for many homeowners, arriving home well past sunset to a darkened house and shadowy yard.

Even when I knew I’d be getting home after dark, I could never justify leaving the porch light on all day. There’s no sense in wasting all that energy and shortening bulb life! That meant that my covered patio’s light only really got use when I was spending the evening outdoors, and didn’t really offer much in the way of safety. I needed to upgrade to a motion-activated light, but not any old model. I was holding out for one with LED technology for high illumination at reduced operating costs to provide visibility from the sidewalk, up the porch steps, and to my keypad door lock. Enter the new Eaton Revolve 270° LED Floodlight.

After less than 20 minutes of “out with the old, in with the new,” I can never go back. Besides crossing all of the checkboxes I had, my new light went above and beyond with three pleasant surprises.

1. Illumination coverage can be adjustable.

Traditional floodlights illuminate in a circular pattern, creating a strong spotlight effect in the center but fading away at the edges. The Eaton Revolve LED Floodlight, however, features three individual optics that can be manually rotated 360-degrees to cast three separate beams of light exactly where you need them most. That meant I could point one optic toward my back door, aim another down the sidewalk that connects the patio and garage, and direct the third toward a corner of the patio where I’ll soon install the steps and walk that lead to my small garden house. No more shadows, no more tripping—just clearly lit pathways whenever activated by movement within 50 feet of the light fixture!

2. Unnoticeable, even attractive, floodlights do exist.

In the past, when I’ve searched for a floodlight, the last thing I’d worry about was a good-looking design. As far as I knew, the market was full of a lot of the same: obvious, industrial-looking lights. The Revolve LED floodlight, however, managed to merge form and function. Its low-profile housing tucks up under my covered porch just so that, unless you’re looking for it, you’ll pass right underneath without ever knowing it’s there during daylight hours. Even if you do catch a glimpse, you’ll see that its housing is sleek, fashionable, and thankfully without the large, unsightly reflectors that come standard on traditional models.

Photo: Glenda Taylor

3. Replacing my old light was a snap.

Replacing any old light fixture can be intimidating—sometimes enough so to delay an upgrade—but the Revolve LED simplifies the process. Instead of holding a light in one hand while you attempt to connect old wires directly to the light itself, you have two hands free throughout the most technical aspects of the job.

Once I removed my old light, which was brimming with dead insects, I quickly connected the home’s electrical wiring to an adapter cable using wire nuts that would easily snap to the light’s wiring. Then, threaded through the center of the light’s mounting plate (which I secured to the soffit’s structure with screws), all I had to do was hook the cords together and tuck the extra length neatly into the junction box. Voila! The light was wired.

Already an easy installation, the cherry on top was the that the floodlight’s screws came pre-inserted. When you’re teetering on a ladder, balancing a light, and trying to run screws into the mounting bracket, this little convenience is a godsend. All I had to do was align the screws on the light fixture with the raised holes on the mounting bracket, and I could tighten them with a Phillip’s head screwdriver in one go.

One word of advice for installation: The Revolve LED floodlight is not a wimpy light. The die cast aluminum fixture weighs nearly 5 lbs, so make sure the light box in your soffit or ceiling is firmly attached to a joist or to structural blocking wherever you choose to install it. The soffit material, itself, won’t be enough to support this light.

Photo: Glenda Taylor

Though only up and running for few days so far, I’m already pleased my new directional floodlight. Experimenting with the motion detector’s sensitivity settings helped me find the “sweet spot” that recognizes a visitor walking along the sidewalk but won’t activate whenever a moth flutters by. Plus, I’ve customized the light duration for just the amount of time it takes for me to get to the door, unlock it, and enter. Perhaps the only thing missing from my outdoor lighting now is a matching floodlight in the soffit out above the center stall of my three-car garage! After my experience with this first one, I won’t be hesitating to make an installation like this again.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Eaton. The opinions and text are all mine.